Bloggers imprisoned in mass sentencing in Vietnam

Bangkok, January 9, 2013--At least five independent bloggers
were sentenced today to harsh jail terms in Vietnam, according to local and
international news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns this
move and calls on Vietnamese authorities to reverse the charges on appeal and
release the bloggers.

In a two-day trial, a court in the city of Vinh convicted and
sentenced the bloggers on charges of participating in "activities aimed at
overthrowing the people's administration" and "undermining of national unity"
and of participating in "propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,"
news reports said.
CPJ research shows that many authoritarian countries resort to such vague state-security
charges to justify punishing journalists. Political
activists were also convicted on the same charges and sentenced, the reports said. All
of the individuals received between three and 13 years in prison, news reports
said.

"These harsh sentences demonstrate the outrageous lengths that
Vietnamese authorities are willing to go to suppress independent reporting,"
said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's Southeast Asia representative. "We call on the
authorities to reverse these convictions and release all journalists currently
held behind bars on spurious national security-related charges."

Bloggers Paulus Le Van Son, Ho Duc Hoa, Dang Xuan Dieu, Nong
Hung Anh, and Nguyen Van Duyet were among those convicted, according to a statement
released by Viet Tan. The bloggers had been arrested in 2011 and held in
pre-trial detention on unspecified charges related to Article 79 of the penal
code, which outlines penalties for activities aimed at toppling the government.
The bloggers were regular contributors to Vietnam Redemptorist News, an online publication that covers the
plight of the country's persecuted Catholic minority, land disputes between the
government and grassroots communities, and other social issues.

News accounts reported that Son, Hoa, and Dieu were
sentenced to 13 years in prison and five years' house arrest; Duyet was
sentenced to six years in prison and four years' house arrest; and Anh was
sentenced to five years in prison and three years' house arrest.

CPJ's 2012
prison census showed Vietnam held 14 reporters behind bars, making the
country the sixth worst jailer of journalists in the world. Thirteen of those
14 imprisoned journalists published predominantly on independent blogs or for
other online publications.